Is the long-running love affair between British drivers and coming to an end? Could it be that the drop-top car, so long a symbol of the simple freedom and joy of driving, out of step with the times? All the evidence points to a relationship in serious – if not terminal – decline. A recent report by car marketplace CarGurus shows that the number of new drop-top models sold by the 30 most popular car brands in the UK has fallen by 39 per cent since 2015. It also cites an 83 per cent drop in sales of new convertible cars between 2004 and 2022, down from 94,484 to 16,486 annually.
Given the seismic shifts that have taken place over the past few years as a result of Covid, supply issues, the financial squeeze and the rise of , perhaps it isn’t surprising that the convertible is in danger of becoming yesterday’s news. After all, in turbulent times (and they recently have been for many car brands), consolidation, rationalisation and the bottom line are the name of the game. Anything on the periphery has a tendency to get left behind.
The pace of change has been rapid, though. In the past 12 months, Audi, Lexus, Smart and Jaguar convertible models have gone off sale in the UK, leaving each brand with no convertible in its lineup. You don’t have to look that far back to a time when every big-name car brand was happy to sell you a convertible.
At some point in the noughties, Nissan, Peugeot, Renault, Toyota and Vauxhall had at least one in their range. Even Volvo, that most .